A Stroke of Beauty

FOR MOST PEOPLE, elementary school penmanship lessons meant painstakingly copying curly, swooping letters, but the work eventually paid off in beautiful script. Third grade would hardly seem the same without them. In today's digital world though, e-mail, online banking, and word processors have virtually erased the need for such handiwork, and students work at too fast a pace to even bother with tedious cursive.

To adapt, educators have found ways to make learning cursive quicker and cleaner, turning to programs such as Handwriting Without Tears to develop their students' penmanship. Cursive has become vertical, not slanted, with little of the fuss associated with fancy uppercase characters. Even the paper is changing. Practice paper has two lines, not three, to guide each letter.

Students are finding the method easier to use, and proponents in school systems in at least 15 states say their handwriting has improved dramatically. Finally, cursive doesn't have to be a curse.

-DANIELLE TAYLOR

Copyright National Education Association Nov 2007
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